PEAK PUTTERS

It's Black Tuesday: Kids' bikes officially illegal!
Youth ATV and Dirt Bikes Banned by CPSIA
Posted February 10 2009 11:43 PM by Jesse Ziegler
Filed under: News



Effective today, February 10, 2009, all youth ATV and motorcycles are banned from dealer floors, service shops and made illegal to sell by anyone in the United States.


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This is actually happening. It’s not made up or exaggerated. You cannot buy a youth (defined as being intended for children 12-years old and younger) motorcycle or ATV. You can’t even buy one from a private party or your own parents.

That means no more models such as the Honda CRF50—long standing as the largest selling production motorcycle in the world (versions of it labeled as Z 50 and XR 50 included). How scary is that?

The story has been unfolding for weeks. If you’re just stumbling upon this now, here’s a blog from Dealernews with some up-to-date info. It’s not good as in cheery or happy info. But it’s as current as anything I’ve seen or been able to report.

The only grassroots glimmer of hope for the powersports industry surviving this blow is coming from Missouri State Representative Tom Self who has set up his own website as a letter-generator of sorts to Congress. Cruise over to www.tomself.com and take five minutes to send a letter. It’s crunch time. And those with influence over the Consumer Product Safety Commision (CPSC) should be aware of how important the sales of these small products are. Also, they need to know how ridiculous it is to ban them for violating a lead-content law that was intended for children’s toys.

But there’s more you can do. You can go to the CPSC Website and ask them some questions. I asked: “I strongly oppose the CPSIA's restricitions on off-road youth motorcycles and ATVs. Also, bicycles? Really? Why did you take my motorcycles, ATVs and bicycles away? My dealer said he couldn’t sell them to me. I don’t get it. I promise I won’t eat them. Can I have them back now?â€

From my little bit of research, looks like they are basing the ban on the lead content exposed to kids. In this case, in the battery terminals and valve stems. Really?

I didn't realize there were that many kids chewing on valve stems and battery terminals

Lurch wrote:I didn't realize there were that many kids chewing on valve stems and battery terminals

...and are those the kids we need to fight to save?

Taken From Race-Dezert.com:


Dear OSET Customer,

You may have heard about a new law that came into effect on February 10th. The law is a broad, sweeping law called the ‘Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act’ (CPSIA). The law was enacted as a knee jerk reaction by Congress to the importation of lead tainted toys from Mattel etc. The new laws give very strict guidelines that have had unintended consequences for many industries. Many metal alloys often contain lead. Engine casings on mini motorcycles, valve stems, spoke nipples etc all now fail the new standards. The fact that lead in metal alloys is ‘insoluble’ has escaped the Government and the CPSC. The lead content in alloys poses no health risks whatsoever. The law was entirely political, and will do little or nothing to protect our children. How many of us have seen kids sucking on motorcycles?

At this point in time, all motorcycle manufacturers have stopped selling youth motorcycles for kids age 12 or under. Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, KTM, Polini, Cobra, Polaris and OSET are all in the same boat. Any bicycle with 24â€

this is bad and really pisses me off,i will end up a crimnal before this adminastration is done.
what is with the people sitting behind a desk,dont they think we can take care of our children anymore.
How come all this lead didnt hurt us when we were all kids.

Admin edit: Please remember that this is in a public area of the forum.

I think this calls for a 12 and under ride on the capitol... followed by the parents of all the kids that find happiness and family time on the trail, dunes and tracks of this failing country. I'm pretty sure thousands of little Honda's, Suzuki's, Kawasaki's, KTM's, and whatever else is out there would send a big enough message...

well i guess brooke will have to go from a 80cc to a 250cc 4 wheeler.
i think i can make that work,she can ride my 400cc already(just putting around).
who is stupid enough to make a law like this,do they realize what there taking from our children,family time,outdoors,land management,respect,(self)controll,consintration,cordnation,happyness and not being infront of the tv watching spongbob or some stupid show.
that is to name a few of the things.
if they start giving tickets for letting our children ride im going to be a broke SOB,then ill have to be on welfair.

Yeah, seems like someone didn't read the small print before voting for this idiocy. Knee jerk politics at it's worst. And Bush signed it! I don't understand how it got under the manufacturer's radar!! Likely because it was to address the Mattel toy issue, and this is fallout from that.

Transcript of the "Rush" show:


BEGIN TRANSCRIPT


RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I mentioned this story yesterday, and here are the details. It's an AP story from Helena, Montana: "A new national limit on lead in children's products -- which has toy makers scrambling for new testing methods and retailers for storage space for inventory they're not sure they can sell -- also is forcing motorcycle dealers to pull dirt bikes off showroom floors. It became illegal Tuesday to sell off-road machines geared for children younger than 12 because parts in them contain lead at levels greater than 600 parts per million. Most motor vehicles have such parts. 'I think they took this law a little too far,' said Margie Hicklin-Krsul, the owner of Redline Sports, a sports bike dealership in Butte. 'I've never had anyone come in and say, "My child keeps putting parts of his motorcycle into his mouth."'"

So you could say here that government regulations are about to ruin yet another business. I'm unable to get to the bottom of this. People have been sending me so much stuff I've gotten confused now. The esoteric analysis of this, it's above my pay grade to listen to some of these scholars write about this stuff, but apparently it's possible, and I'm not sure if it's the case, some people believe that it is, that children's books, hardcover children's books printed before 1985 will become illegal because of lead content in the manufacture of some hardcover books. Now, some people say, "No, no, no, no, no, this been changed," others say, "No it hasn't been changed." It's like so many other things in the stimulus bill, most people don't know really what's in it yet and won't know until it's signed this afternoon and people start implementing what's in it. Do you realize people can do whatever they want and say it's in the stimulus bill and who's going to know? Nobody has read this thing. So the stimulus bill can be pretty much what anybody wants it to be. But the dirt bike provision here is a pretty serious thing, and it's more government regulation ruining or threatening to ruin yet another business under the rubric here that we just can't police ourselves, we can't protect ourselves, we're too stupid, we're too idiotic to know what's good for us, or at least a few of us are and since some of us are so stupid and incompetent, rules have to be written for all of us.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Hillsdale, Michigan. This is Sean. It's great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you doing today?

RUSH: Just fine. Thank you.

CALLER: Good. Rush, I'm calling about the CPSIA, or the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 --

RUSH: Yeah?

CALLER: -- and how it's affecting some of the small businesses around this country.

RUSH: Well, that's the lead rules. Yeah.

CALLER: The lead rules, exactly. You referred to them in your last set there. There's two things about this act that really I think need to be brought to light and the first one is, how the act came to be. You know, I've been around the automotive industry for years and when legislation and regulation came in to those industries, there was years to react; years of time to be able to react to new rules and redesign products and whatnot. And this act was passed last August, it was kind of sprung on everybody this winter, and now companies like mine who manufacture products for the off-road motorcycle market are literally blindsided and given only a few weeks to react to this whole thing. I think that's one of the reasons why there's so much up for around this new legislation.


RUSH: Well, the uproar is just now starting to build. I wouldn't even call it an uproar yet. I think it's just now starting to percolate. I don't think it's reached uproar status at all. Which is why we here on the cutting edge of societal evolution, if there's going to be big, we'll tell you about it when it's small. You're in the dirt bike business, right?

CALLER: Yeah, yeah. Our company focuses on the youth off-road market, mostly on the high performance end of things. We're the only manufacturer in the US of this kind of product. We're a small business. We have under 50 employees, but we use several manufacturers around the country for our products. We actually have about a hundred other countries that rely on our business to help stay in business. So the tentacles that are out in the marketplace, even though we're a small company here, are pretty deep.

RUSH: I know. This is sad. It's happening turnover industry that the government attacks. The Congress has attacked the private jet industry. You wouldn't believe the number of orders that have been canceled. The ripples throughout that industry, which I tried to chronicle last week, are profound. I had a story yesterday that I did not get to but it was a story about the Ritz Carlton at Half Moon Bay in California. They've had 30 cancellations of golf trips -- conventions, business golf trips -- because these people simply don't want to go someplace nice to appear conspicuous. So the ripples of commerce, ripples of these attacks and the class envy are happening throughout the country. Your business, making dirt bikes, is all about inventory. I read a story that there are some retailers, Sean, that have a hundred million dollars worthwhile of inventory they may have to take off the showroom in weeks just to comply with this stupid law! Because the kids, of course, are going to come in and lick the lead parts that are in these dirt bikes and of course they might get sick and die and so forth. This is a tragedy that's happening throughout the American capitalist system. There's an all-out assault on it.

CALLER: Yeah, there is -- and, Rush, to clarify one point there, they've already taken their products off the shelves. This has happened last week. The big four manufacturers (the big four being Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki and Yamaha) have all mandated that their dealers take everything off the floor and this weekend I was at a trade show. I talked to a lot of these dealers, and a lot of them are on the brink anyway because of the shape our economy is. This is enough in many cases to just push them over the edge.

RUSH: Right. Because if you can't put your product on the showroom and you can't display it, how do you sell it?

CALLER: That's it. That's it. So that's the first part of this issue. The second part that needs to be brought to light is the testing requirements that the CPSC is putting in place, and they put a reprieve of one year on these requirements, but the fact of the matter is that each and every component of one of these kids' products -- it could be a motorcycle or it can be anything. But as of February of 2010 each and every component has to be tested by a third-party, government-accredited laboratory. And we've done some initial looks into this. We've obviously tested a lot of our parts already, from non-accredited labs because the accreditation process isn't even done yet. But to do this is going to cost us about one year of revenues, which is, you know, obviously that's going to put companies like ours completely out of business.

RUSH: Why don't just pass the prices along in the consumer? You know, amortize it over an annual bunch of sales, and pass it along to the buyers?

CALLER: Sure. Sure. I think that's the mind-set of the people that wrote the legislation, but you and I both know that it doesn't work that way.

RUSH: Obviously. They think you can pass your cost on like they can.

CALLER: Yeah. Sure.

RUSH: Well, now, let me ask. You've done a lot of looking into this. People hear you speak this way, and they just can't believe that their own government would take action like this so punitive as to put an industry out of business. But that's a real possibility with you, isn't it?

CALLER: Absolutely. And it's not just dirt bikes. I think dirt bikes and ATVs got brought to the forefront mostly because the companies. I'm not speaking of my own company in this case, but the other big companies that are in this business are big targets. They're big targets for trial lawyers, they're big targets for legislators, and they don't want to appear dirty in this whole things.

RUSH: Well, you see, you've just mentioned one of the motivation ideas for doing something like this. This is a pure payback to the trial lawyers for their loyal support, hefty donations to the Democrats. You come up with all these ridiculous laws like lead in books, children's books before 1985; lead above a certain allowable limit in say the product you manufacture; and you just open the door for tort lawyers to come in here and round up supposedly aggrieved citizens who unwittingly purchase one of these products. Their kids then got it home and started licking it, got sick and so forth, and, "Why didn't you tell us these were dangerous if you at 'em? We thought motorcycles were to be driven but my kids tried to eat it and my kid got sick!" You know, the jury, "You evil, rotten manufacturers," because the Democrats have done such a great job of creating hatred for big business, small business in this country. So that's one of the inspirations for legislation like this is to provide a target-rich environment for trial lawyers, who need movement. They need movement. They need people having accidents.

CALLER: Rush, I'm not so sure that some of the motivation behind this wasn't kind of a trade barrier in disguise as well.

RUSH: How so? Explain that to people.

CALLER: Well, if you look at the history of this whole thing and how it got started, it really came about, what was it, maybe two years when lead was found in infants' toys; and most of those infants' toys (in fact all the ones that had lead in them) happened to come from China so there was outrage there was lots of talk about what are we going to do about this and the CPSIA really is the end result of all that, but I think -- and this is just a guess at this point, but I think -- what was kind of a feel-good piece of legislation that nobody was willing to vote against because it was For the Children ended up throwing a huge net around many industries that nobody even anticipated. And dirt bikes are certainly one of those. But I think that the government in some way didn't really think through that a whole lot because they were thinking, "Well, you know what? China's involved here," and a lot of this is kind of a punishment, payback for taking jobs away," so to speak, and there was no thought of the ramification it was going to have to American business.

RUSH: The old unintended consequences.

CALLER: Sure. Sure.

RUSH: Well, you are very charitable to your government, who has passed legislation that could essentially shut you down. I don't buy this unintended consequences business. There are too many of them, too often, too frequently -- and I think we have a Democrat leadership now who professes a full disdain for our capitalist system, and whatever they can do to change it, they'll do.


END TRANSCRIPT
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NOTICE OF AVAILABILITY OF DRAFT GUIDANCE REGARDING WHICH CHILDREN’S PRODUCTS ARE SUBJECT TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF CPSIA SECTION 108; REQUEST FOR COMMENTS AND INFORMATION1
February 12, 2009
Introduction
Section 108 of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA)1 permanently prohibits the sale of any “children’s toy or child care articleâ€

Anybody see motorcycles / ATV's in above gobbledegook?

Looks like they want to regulate more than lead content.

The other chemical content they want to regulate can be found in just about everything you can buy in a store.

This is what Honda has posted.


2008 & Prior TRX90X models (all versions) are again eligible for retail sale


The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recently advised that ATV’s designated as Y-12
do not meet the definition of a “Children’s Productâ€

I think the other motorcycle manufacturers should just say their bikes and ATV's are meant for 12 and up and get out of this lead content nonsense.

My first bike was a little Honda Z-50 when I was 8yrs old. Then a CT-70, XR-75, etc., and I'm just fine........... ok, forget about that!

This is the stupidest thing I have heard yet. What will happen when there are no more small bikes and quads? The kiddies are going to jump on stuff that is too big for them, and get injured or killed. Brilliant

BLUERIBBON COALITION, INC.
MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Brian Hawthorne
Phone: 208-237-1008 ext 102
208-390-5770
Date: March 4, 2009
BlueRibbon Coalition Applauds Idaho Congressman for Requesting Hearings on Children's OHV Ban
Pocatello, Idaho (March 4) -- The BlueRibbon Coalition applauded Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson for requesting hearings on the ban of children's off-highway vehicles and snowmobiles.
Today, Congressman Simpson sent a letter to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman requesting an oversight hearing to explore the affects of certain mandates of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPISA) of 2008. Simpson is specifically concerned that the implementation of the bill has now banned the sales of children's off-highway vehicles (OHVs).
"This is welcome news, and we sincerely hope Chairman Waxman will grant Congressman Simpson's request," said Don Amador, BRC's Western Representative. Millions of off-highway vehicle enthusiasts and thousands of powersports businesses have been requesting a withdrawal of the ban for weeks. BRC praised Congressman Simpson for the letter and also called on their members to continue to press for a removal of the ban.
Congressman Simpson's Letter to Chairman Waxman
http://www.sharetrails.org/uploads/L...n_re_CPSIA.pdf
###
The BlueRibbon Coalition is a national recreation group that champions responsible recreation, and encourages individual environmental stewardship. It represents over 10,000 individual members and 1,200 organization and business members, for a combined total of over 600,000 recreationists nationwide. 1-800-258-3742. www.sharetrails.org

Get BRC's Latest News & Alerts via RSS!
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlueRibbonCoalition

The Power of Three-Letter Words
How "Any" Changes the Lives of Hundreds of Thousands of Americans

By Tim Buche

Any. An innocent three-letter word, one would think. For hundreds of thousands of Americans and for the powersports industry, it is the most powerful word in the dictionary today. And it's led to another three-letter word with enormous impact: ban.

Three-letter words that could halt a recreational enjoyment of the great outdoors for parents with their children all across America. Three-letter words that are compounding how thousands of small businesses are already dealing with the economic challenges of the recession.

The powersports industry is caught in the middle of a fight over words between Congress and the Consumer Product Safety Commission about the lead standards in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Congress voted the act into legislation last summer and the new lead content limits were implemented last month. Many critics of the legislation believe that a wide range products have unintentionally been swept up in this legislation, which resulted in a ban of many all-terrain vehicles and off-highway motorcycles designed for youth.

Several senators and congressmen have written to, and met with, CPSC to point out that the legislation they wrote and signed into law gave CPSC the power to grant merited, common-sense exclusions, for products such as ATVs and off-highway motorcycles, from the lead standards. But CPSC says a product can be excluded only if regulators determine that use of the product will not result in the absorption of "any" lead in the human body.

Putting aside the fact that kids won't eat or lick their ATVs or motorcycles, the industry, in fact, submitted scientific evidence to the CPSC using the analytical method required by the legislation. The evidence demonstrates that the lead-containing components, parts and accessories of these vehicles - essential for safety or functionality purposes - pose no risk of causing measurable increase of lead in the blood stream in children aged 12 and younger.

In fact, in the scientific evidence submitted, a toxicology expert estimated that any potential lead intake resulting from kids' exposure to motorcycles and ATVs would be substantially less than the typical daily intakes of lead from food and water.
Yet these vehicles still sit in warehouses and not on showroom floors. Meanwhile, the sales of goods like protective gear, accessories, and parts and services, are virtually non-existent.

The consequences of this ban are serious. With these ATVs unavailable to families, we may see more kids on ATVs designed for adults. We know this leads to crashes. The CPSC, the ATV industry, consumer groups, safety advocates and parents all agree that it's critical to keep riders under the age of 16 off of adult-sized ATVs. Collectively we have worked for years to get kids onto youth model ATVs, many of which are now not available because of the unintended consequences of this legislation. We also anticipate that families with smaller dirt bike enthusiasts may be tempted to put young riders on motorcycles that are too large for them. This also raises the risk of injury.

This is no small concern. Hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts and their families will start to enjoy the great outdoors as warmer days roll in. It's as automatic as setting your clock ahead one hour in the spring. And they won't be able to go to their local dealer to buy a right-sized ATV or dirt bike for their children, or get the parts they need to fix existing vehicles.

Did you know that if you went to your local dealer for repairs or parts for one of these vehicles that he most likely will not be able to fix the vehicle or sell you parts because some of the components may not comply with the new lead standards?
It all adds up to potential massive losses for dealers, manufacturers, retailers and others - up to $1 billion in retail economic value annually.

These products present no health risk to children. There is no practical reason for this industry and its customers to be harmed by an unintended effect of this law. Each day this ban continues compounds the severe hardship on families and businesses.

The powersports industry, on behalf of businesses and families across the country who have written hundreds of thousands of letters to Congress and CPSC, continues to urge the CPSC to grant the industry's request for exclusions based on the evidence presented.

If CPSC believes its hands are tied because of the way the legislation was written, we ask Congress to amend the law to restore common sense and make exclusions available.

Here's another three-letter word that's just as powerful. Now.



Tim Buche is president of the Motorcycle Industry Council and Specialty Vehicle Institute of America.
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http://www.StopTheBanNow.com

BLUERIBBON COALITION ACTION ALERT!

House Bill to Overturn Ban on Youth ATVs and Dirt Bikes Introduced!

Dear BRC Action Alert Subscriber,

Last week we told you about the bill that was introduced in the Senate to stop the Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) ban on the sale of youth-sized ATVs, dirt bikes and snowmobiles. This week our friends at Americans for Responsible Recreational Access (ARRA) are reporting the House has followed suit.

Representatives Rehberg (R-MT), Burgess (R-TX), Pomeroy (D-ND) and Simpson (R-ID) have introduced legislation that will stop the ban. H.R. 1587: To amend the lead prohibition provisions of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 to provide an exemption for certain off-highway vehicles, and for other purposes, was introduced in the House on March 18, 2009.

So let's join with our friends at ARRA and send a letter to your Representative and Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee urging them to support and cosponsor H.R. 1587.

I have pasted a copy of ARRA's alert below. Please read it over, take action and pass it along.
It's extremely important that you continue to fight this ban and have your voice heard.

Thanks in advance for your support,
Ric Foster
Public Lands Department Manager
BlueRibbon Coalition
208-237-1008 ext 107


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House Bill to Overturn Ban on Youth ATVs and Dirt Bikes Introduced!

Weigh in to Have Your Voice Heard!

Youth sized ATVs and dirt bikes are still banned. We need your help to continue to build enough pressure to get the ban overturned. It is unlikely that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) will act to approve the Motorcycle Industry Council's petition to grant regulatory relief. This means we need Congress to act.

Representatives Rehberg (R-MT), Burgess (R-TX), Pomeroy (D-ND) and Simpson (R-ID) have introduced legislation that will stop the ban. Please click the Take Action button below to urge your Representative and Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to support and cosponsor H.R. 1587.

ARRA members have responded in huge numbers on this issue already, but it is important that you continue to have your voice heard.

After you weigh in, please use the Tell-A-Friend feature to forward this alert to everyone you know that rides. It is imperative that the voice of every rider be heard!

For more information visit www.stopthebannow.com.

Take Action

Send a letter to the following decision maker(s):
House Committee on Energy and Commerce
U.S. House

Below is the sample letter:

Subject: Please Cosponsor H.R. 1587

Dear ,

I'm writing today as a citizen who enjoys riding ATVs / dirt bikes. I urge you to co-sponsor and support H.R. 1587 which will exempt youth model all-terrain vehicles and off-highway motorcycles from the lead content provisions of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).

Although the powersports industry has demonstrated that the lead content in the metal parts of ATVs and dirt bikes pose no risk to children's health, the Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) recent approval of a final rule imposing strict standards for excluding products from the new lead content limits makes clear that CPSC will not provide relief for youth model ATVs or dirt bikes. Congress needs to step in and make immediate amendments to the CPSIA to ensure that reasonable exclusions can be made for these products, which are piling up in stores and dealerships across the country, needlessly resulting in millions of dollars in lost sales and costs at a time when our economy and these small businesses can least afford it.

But the unintended consequences of this ban go way beyond the business and financial ramifications - it affects me personally, and it affects family and friends who ride with their children, because it destroys the chance for families to enjoy these outdoor recreational activities together. AND it poses a potentially huge safety risk if, as an alternative to having the kid-sized vehicles available, parents opt to put their kids on larger, adult-sized vehicles. PLUS, there is mass confusion. Should kids who race in off-road competitions even go to events? Will parents be able to buy critical replacement parts for their kids' ATVs or dirt bikes, like brake pieces or valve stems? Everyone suffers: dealers, manufacturers, aftermarket, motocross event operators, and especially families with children who are being denied their right to ride. And ride safely.

When the new lead standard took effect on February 10, 2009, youth models of ATVs and dirt bikes designed and intended primarily for children 6 to 12 years of age became classified as banned hazardous substances and dealerships in our area were forced to remove these perfectly good products from showrooms. Components in youth model ATVs and dirt bikes that contain small quantities of lead such as valve stems on tires, aluminum in some brake components, and terminals on batteries, do so to address safety (such as machining the deep grooves on tire valves to assure tire air retention) or for functionality (such as the lead in battery terminals, needed to conduct electricity).

The sad irony is that these youth models were created with the support of the CPSC and consumer advocates to give children a safer alternative to larger, faster adult size models. These long-term efforts to promote child safety are now seriously jeopardized. In addition, youth rider training to encourage the safe and responsible use of ATVs and dirt bikes is jeopardized because new youth models and parts and accessories for them are no longer available. As an ATV / dirt bike rider, and one who has respected the law and encouraged responsible riding, I find this to be unacceptable. The lead in those vehicles does not pose a risk to children 's health. Congress needs to stop this ban - NOW.

I respectfully ask that you co-sponsor and support H.R. 1587 so youth ATVs and dirt bikes again will be available for sale and safe and responsible use.

Sincerely,


Take Action http://www.arra-access.com/campaign/adv ... srhjbwbmk8?


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Americans for Responsible Recreation Access
555 Twelfth Street, NW, Suite 710 North, Washington, DC 20004
webmaster@mail.arra-access.com
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